


Gumbo Zabe

by TrekFaerie



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Child Loss, F/F, Family, Gen, Magic, Major Illness, Slice of Life, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-03-25 02:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13824252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrekFaerie/pseuds/TrekFaerie
Summary: Being a single father is hard. Being a single father on the Isle is a whole other story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i thought playing in fm would let this canon leave my blood
> 
> it made it worse
> 
> help me

It seemed like everyone was getting some but him, sometimes.

The Isle was even worse than New Orleans, that way. At least back home, he could flirt with the mambo and a few of the Creole girls, and maybe get a smile back. On the Isle, there was nothing. The normal folk were all scared of him-- which he didn't mind, normally; they oughta be scared, even if his power was gone. Most of the villains, cliquey bunch that they were, didn't give him the time of day; the magic users looked down on him for not having inborn talent, the aristocratic kind thought him little more than a common thief. And some, well... Maybe the Isle was a little too much like Nawlins, in some ways.

And it frustrated him, to hear news of his fellow villains and their exploits, their offspring. Hook, for reasons only the Devil himself knew, had already gotten two off some poor pirate lasses-- and rumor had it another was on the way. Cruella... God only knew what gutter she'd picked that little starveling she dressed like a fancy pup out of, but, Hell, didn't make little Carlos any less there! Half of them didn't even have proper family names to begin with-- was the Facilier line just gonna die on this shadow-forsaken rock?!

There was no real reason for him to keep up his shrine-- just as the barrier kept out all forms of magic, it seemed to keep his Friends well at bay. Still, he did it, mainly out of habit, sometimes out of fear, rarely out of hope. It was during one of his sleepless nights in front of it that he heard the knock.

There was no one at the door, when he opened it, but there was something there: a baby, hardly more than a few days old, swaddled in rough cloth and placed carelessly on the front step of the shop. He looked for a note, and found one, but it hardly helped: the only signature was a handprint, red as blood. And that had to mean nothing. It had to. Not here.

He glanced at his shadow, still as water.

The baby only screamed louder when he lifted it up, but it quieted soon after, looking at him owlishly with yellowish cat eyes. It had an odd sort of pattern on its face, like the face paint he'd seen at shindigs at Congo Square. Like it had been marked.

He brought the child in, glanced around his messy bachelor pad, the books and trinkets littering the floor, the bed that was hardly more than some blankets on the floor... He'd never really learned to be careful what he wished for, had he?


	2. Chapter 2

It was easy enough, before she started walking (and, Lord help him, talking), to keep Freddie under control. An infant doesn't need all too much. Eats what you give it. Wears what you give it. Doesn't really complain. Children grow out of that stage much too quick, he thought.

Though, to be fair, it wasn't like she verbalized any of those complaints. It was just he couldn't help but notice the envy in her eyes when fair Evie flounced around the playground in her silly little princess getups, see the steely set of her little jaw when Mal declared she wasn't cute enough to play with the rest of them... He hadn't ever really thought about it. She was growing so damn fast; what was the point of fancy clothes at her age? He'd never owned anything finer than the Auradon castoffs she wore 'til he was in his 30s. He'd never suspected little girls could be half as cruel as they were, even the villainous ones.

It was his luck that Cruella, with her deep desire for the sense of normalcy shopping sprees gave her, was pretty much never not drowning in debt with him. Not enough to have the fabrics she'd paid the goblins dearly for turned into anything by her own hand, but enough to have them in his shop, where he was sure a needle, thread, and a slightly coffee-stained book of patterns would do the job just fine.

"Daddy?"

He swallowed the curse as the needle pierced his thumb rather than the cloth. Freddie was on the other side of the table, the top of her head just barely visible as she tried to peer over it at him. "What's all this?" she asked. She spoke with a familiar lilt, and though it was only picked up secondhand from him, she somehow managed to sound like she'd grown up right on Bourbon Street.

"Go try this on for me, _ma petite_." He used his uninjured hand to push one of his finished projects at her. "Think it should be alright. Been going off guesswork, really."

She pulled it down off the table, strutting over to him once she'd pulled it on and modeling it, spinning on her heel. "This is too nice to keep in the shop, Daddy," she said authoritatively. It was a nice enough dress, he supposed; probably about a hundred years out of fashion in Auradon, but nice enough for a place like the Isle. "Somebody'll steal it for sure. Better keep it for a private sale-- maybe Miss Evil Queen?"

He tried not to roll his eyes. "It's not for sale, Freddie," he said, to her legitimate confusion. "It's yours."

She paused, taking in this new information, visibly analyzing it. "... It's not my birthday," she said after a while.

"No, it's 'I'm sick of those two little brats thinking they can push you around 'cause your daddy doesn't dress you right' day. Celebrate."

She looked down at the dress with wide eyes, her little hands smoothing out the wrinkles. She didn't look back up at him, but he could see her face, see her struggling to find the words for the situation. For somebody who had definitely inherited his way with words-- he'd seen her charm the wallets off customers just as often as she'd get them in other ways-- they always seemed to fail her when it came to talking with him.

"Now, go outside and play for a while. Get out of my hair for a bit while I'm working." He looped another thread into another needle. "And if that little fairy girl even looks at you funny, sock her in the jaw. I'll deal with Mama Mal."

She beamed at him, and he heard her bare feet slapping against the floor as she ran out... Damn. Shoes. He couldn't make shoes. Had to get them from the goblins. Was five too young for wedges? It was probably too young for wedges.


	3. Chapter 3

Going down to meet the barges was its own special kind of Hell. It was bad enough that the whole place stunk of trash and goblin-- the last thing he needed in life was some of those aforementioned goblins looking down their knobbly noses at him as he pawed through the scraps Auradon left them.

He knew the majority of his contemporaries felt the same-- except for ol' Mim, who loved bringing her grandkids down frolic in the garbage the way some people brought their kids to playgrounds-- which was why he already saw Jafar's whelp elbow deep in the nearest pile of filth, sifting through the trash in hopes of hidden treasures. Couldn't expect the old vizier to go looking himself, after all. Had to keep some of the scraps of dignity Auradon hadn't torn away completely.

He knew better than to order Freddie to do that-- though he was glad she'd finally found a sort of friend in the youngest Hook child, she'd learned some positively filthy language down by the docks and didn't hesitate to throw it at him when she was displeased-- and he hadn't fallen nearly that low in life himself, so he wasn't there to join the others. He had a special delivery.

A taller goblin stood off to the side, overseeing as her underlings brought bundles of trash off the barge. She glanced up at him-- tall for a goblin was still pretty damn short-- and gave him a rotten-toothed grin. "The bad doctor!" she said in a cheerful, froggy croak. "How awful to see you again."

"Yeah, yeah. You got the goods or what?"

She slipped the package out of her cloak, a lumpy bundle of waxy brown paper. He slipped it under his vest-- it wasn't any sort of surreptitious thing, mind, but he'd rather everyone around-- the goblins, the witches, the street rats-- thought it was. Worked out better that way.

All that was left was to find her.

He found her in her room, setting up a tea party with her voodoo dolls. (He wished she'd use them properly; he felt like Tiana and Naveen wouldn't be too upset being forced to have tea with an eight year old.) He knew she was sure he'd forgotten again-- he had for the past two years, after all-- and that she was planning up her own personal celebration. Well, wasn't she gonna be surprised.

"Mornin', Dad," she said cheerfully, not even looking up from her play, carefully placing chipped cups of invisible tea in front of her guests. She glanced up when she saw his shadow looming over her, staring at him with bright, wide eyes. “What’s up?”

“You know what day it is, _ma petite_?”

She cocked a brow, the unnatural notches in the hair even more obvious from this angle. “Tuesday,” she said, because at some point in time she had picked up sarcasm off him and he couldn’t get her to stop.

He rolled his eyes. “Happy birthday, Freddie,” he said, slipping the package into her hands.

She unwrapped it quickly, as if expecting it to disappear before she got to see it. He couldn’t see her face as she bent over it, but he could hear her gasp, hear her little fingers crinkle at the plastic wrapping protecting it. When she turned around to face him, her smile matched that of Ella’s on the cover.

“I love it,” she said. She didn’t thank him. She hadn’t been raised that way.

They spent the rest of the night playing the record on his creaky old player, with her sitting in his lap and following along in a quiet voice as he taught her the lyrics that he could remember. Every time she told him, her voice full of wonder, that she hadn’t known that they made records that didn’t skip every few beats, fury burned in his gut, and he tossed the two dolls in the trash once she fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm sick of you getting yourself into mortal peril with the pirates every day," he'd said. "Couldn't you and your little friends cause trouble in our side of town for once?" he'd said. "I just want to keep an eye on you,” he’d said.

And that was how he ended up hosting a gaggle of ten year olds for a slumber party.

He didn't recognize half of them. Some he knew from Dragon Hall-- the frightfully pale girl in the black smock was Claudine, the bell ringer; the sole boy, arguing in a piping little voice with CJ against playing blind man's bluff for the thirtieth time, was the Tremaine scion-- but others were entirely unknown to him. Witches, probably, or some of the pirates whose parents morally objected to all forms of schooling, even the evil kind. Were they Freddie’s friends? Or whatever passed for friends in this place. Or were they just the few souls CJ could cajole and threaten into stepping near the “Shadowman’s” turf?

It was a nice enough night, at least. Dusk made the shimmer of the magical barrier almost look pretty instead of stifling, and they were close enough to the water that some breezes kept the heat from becoming too oppressive. He could easily just sit on the steps and watch the kids play in the alleyway, one eye on their hijinks and the other on the papers he was grading—

There was the sound of flesh scraping against stone, and he glanced up to see Freddie on her hands and knees, face obscured by her hair, having collided with a sea witch and taken the brunt of the fall. The other kids gathered around her in a circle. He could see the curious looks on their little faces— not an ounce of concern to be seen. They were just waiting to see what would happen, to see if she’d do something terribly embarrassing that they could hold against her for the rest of her life. Even CJ looked like she’d scented blood in the water. Underfed animals, all of them. Eager to exploit weakness.

He’d taught them well.

Putting the papers aside, he moved towards her and scooped her up by her armpits, placing her back on her feet. The scrape looked bad—he’d have to make up a poultice or something later, if he’d run out of proper medical supplies—but he simply dusted the dirt off of her.

“Real villains don’t cry,” he said in a voice barely above a murmur. She stared up at him, pale eyes wide, and nodded her head almost imperceptibly. After that, she just joined back in the games, playing harder and laughing louder than everyone else. Never let them know you’re mortal; never let them know you feel pain. The moment they know that, it’s all over for you.

He’d taught them damn well.


	5. Chapter 5

Typhoid spread through the Isle like wildfire.

Typhoid. Like it was the damn Spanish-American War or something!

He hadn't even known she'd been affected, at first. It was the annoying part about her tendency to never complain. Any other twelve year old would be moaning and groaning the moment they felt the slightest sniffle-- with her, he only realized something was wrong when she collapsed on the way to school. As he carried her home, far too easily than it should've been with a girl her age, he wondered if that was on her, or on him for not paying enough attention.

A week in, and it seemed like she was lost in her own mind. The fever refused to break, and who knew how long it would take Auradon to receive the message Maleficent had sent out with a goblin barge and send humanitarian aid? Until then, he had no medicine, no antibiotics-- only half-remembered herbal cures from childhood, and those didn't seem to be worth half a damn in the face of such illness.

It was late in the night, moonlight streaming through the open window, but if she couldn't sleep, he wouldn't. He told himself it was because her noise would keep him awake anyway, but, as he sat at her bedside and watched her toss and turn, he knew it was because he was sure if he fell asleep, he'd wake up to find her gone.

"Daddy." Her eyes were hazy and vague. She hadn't called him that in years. "Tell me about the Bayou d'Orleans."

Ah, that. The name the conquerors had given his home after they'd stripped its heart away, tore it off its bearings and gave it as a gift to the frog bitch and her stupid beau. The name they'd forced on a city that hadn't known a king in decades and hadn't accepted another one without a fight.

"New Orleans was a fine city," he said. For lack of anything better to do with his hands, he took the cloth from her forehead and dipped it in the nearby bucket. "Music in the air, finest food you can imagine, streets full of life and song... I imagine it's not so different now. Even with everything that happened, those people aren't quick to change."

They'd banned magic, he heard. Maybe not outlawed it, but disapproved of it, in that thin-lipped way they had. He was sure little Queen Tiana was all for that... Not Mama Odie, though. Now, that he was damn sure of. No measly royal decree would give any of the mambos or houngan a moment's pause-- especially her.

For not the first time, he looked down at his child and wondered if she had sent her to him. She _had_ always wanted grandchildren.

"I wanna go one day." She coughed, violently, wracking her small body, creaking the frame of her bed with the force of it. Had it spread to her lungs? That was how it killed; once it spread, it was all over. A fever of the brain had carried off Ratcliffe's youngest; heard the man cursing God and Satan and King Beast as they tossed the little bundle into the sea, the only burials they could manage. " I wanna hear them play jazz, and I wanna eat beignets. I wanna see where you had your real shop."

She sounded strong as she said it, sounded determined. He felt that was to be encouraged, so he nodded silently as he folded the wet cloth and placed it on her forehead once more.

"Will you take me there, Daddy?"

He paused. His hand found its way to her hair, smoothing out the sweat-slick curls. "You get better, ma petite, and I'll take you anywhere you wanna go."

"Promise?"

"Promise." The words tasted like poison in his mouth. His promises had never meant a damn in the first place. He couldn't promise his child a home where the water she drank and the food she ate didn't have a chance of killing her; he could never promise her freedom. "I promise."

His fingers carded through her locks, the shadow-touched streaks of white against black, and he felt familiar words rising up past his lips. "Masters of the Shadow Land," he intoned, "I call upon your knowing hand. I offer you this sinner's song, to guide the path I walk upon."

The spirits had come through for him once before, big time. He only hoped this wasn't them calling in their debt.


	6. Chapter 6

The smell of blood was strong enough to overpower the usual scents of the Isle. It hit him the moment he opened the door, and his mild disinterest in Freddie's reasoning for skipping school immediately transformed into a rock in the pit of his stomach.

Lord, what had the kid gotten herself into now?

She'd gotten into his stash. Bottles of oil and dried herbs scattered around the floor. Several precious black candles had been melted to stubs. His knife-- authentic silver, gotten from the goblins at a dear price-- had sliced the flesh of her palm nearly down to the bone, and the bowl resting on her knees had a worrying amount of blood in it.

"Freddie Facilier," he said, voice low and dangerous-- as if using her full name wasn't enough for her to know he meant business. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Uh." She looked up at him, then down to her hand. She moved the hand holding the knife behind her back, like she could pretend he hadn't seen it. "School project?"

"Even if that mumbo jumbo worked on this damn rock, this still wouldn't work out the way you'd like it to! Haven't I taught you anything?" She flinched away when he started towards her, but he only sat next to her, not mindful of the mess. He pulled a strip off his shirt with his teeth-- ah, hell, he'd needed a newer one, anyway-- and started to tightly bind her hand. "What in the hell were you even trying to do? What's so damn important you'd risk magic for it?"

"Nothing," she said with a little huff, glowering. He couldn't remember the exact moment his Freddie went from a bright-eyed little child to a hellion of a teenager, but he sure as hell wished he had some sort of magic spell to reverse _that_ change. No matter, he could figure out what she was up to on his own... After all, he had taught her everything she knew.

The blood was basic enough; if you needed raw power, that was as fine a base as any. Sprigs of rue, bloodroot extract... Licorice root and marjoram... Yes, he recognized what she was getting up to. He'd tried it himself a few times, when he'd been young and foolish. Maybe a bit older than she was, but kids grew up quicker on the Isle than they did on the bayou. He wouldn't make her cut a willow branch for her youthful indiscretion, either. So she had that going for her.

He exhaled sharply through his teeth. "You were trying to craft a love potion," he said. And he immediately knew who for.

"I thought I could slip it into her grog," she said, sounding utterly miserable. "That stuff's so strong, she'd never notice it."

He still didn't understand why all the heroes thought a place where bathtub hooch that'd made several pirates go blind already was readily available to thirteen year olds was a fine environment to raise children, but, hey, he was sure they had their oh-so-heroic reasons.

"No girl is worth doing this to yourself," he said. "And even if it had worked, the cost would've been much more than a bit of blood."

"It's the only option I've got," she said. "She'll never see me as anything more than a sidekick without it. For that, I'll pay just about any price..."

He grimaced. Damned Hooks. Bad enough the older ones raised Cain every day with their petty turf wars-- the youngest had finally seemed to realize the hold she had over Freddie, and was gleefully exploiting it to the best of her ability. He'd tried his best to raise an independent, strong-willed girl, and he'd thought he had succeeded-- and then she'd hit puberty, and started to lose her mind chasing a bouncing ponytail and a fluttering red jacket.

"I love her, Dad."

Her voice sounded so small. He hadn't noticed that he hadn't taken back his hand after patching her up, and she gripped it tightly. He sighed deeply, pulling her onto his lap; she'd grown more than a bit since he'd last done that, but she didn't fuss, just leaned her head on his chest. Perhaps it was time he gave her the same talk his mother had given him, back in the day-- just without the willows.

"This may not be the advice you seek... Some will prey on the hearts of the weak." He tapped her chest with his finger twice, right over where her bruised little girl heart was, and she scowled at him. A good sign. "True love holds no guarantees-- love is a magical mystery..."


	7. Chapter 7

He came home from Dragon Hall one night to find she wasn't there.

It wasn't too much of a worry-- though he had told her to mind the shop, skipping work to get into some kind of mischief was more than encouraged-- but when the sun rose again and her bed was still empty, he began to become... worried wasn't the right word. Curious, maybe. He asked around the block, checked the school, checked the shops. He even walked all the way into the pirate's territory, to ask Hook if he'd seen her-- only to be told CJ hadn't returned home, either, though the whole Hook clan seemed almost pleased by that idea. He could hardly think of any other places on the Isle she'd go; the idea that she wasn't on it at all didn't even cross his mind.

By the third day, he figured he'd have to start coming to terms with her being dead. Fallen in a ditch somewhere. Drowned off the shore with that silly pirate brat. If that damn barrier wasn't in place, he could know for sure. The not knowing was the worst part of it all.

A week in, a troop of Auradonian guards showed up to his door, and he decided that, well, even if she was dead, she'd clearly died getting in big trouble, and that was something.

They pushed a fancy-looking parchment into his hands and left with very little fanfare. Had to hustle back to Fairyland before the others got wind of their being there, he bet.

The letter was ostensibly from that new boy-king, Ben, informing him that his daughter, Frederique Facilier (he didn't know, did he?), was to be attending Auradon Prepatory Academy for the rest of the school year, and a request for her records from Dragon Hall. (... He'd have to make some up. Stock it with high grades.) Scribbled beneath the royal signature, though, was a very familiar hand.

_It wasn't my idea, believe me! Trying to make the most of it. And tell the Hooks they shouldn't worry too much, if they even are. See you on the other side, Dad!_

From the upstairs window, he could see the way the barrier shimmered as the guards drove away. She wasn't able to tell him much; she wouldn't have know if the guards were going to check the letter She had to hide her messages to him in a more tricky way, a way only the two of them would understand.

He'd see her again, on the other side. Hopefully before either of them ended up on the Other Side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ta-daaaaaah


End file.
